Such is life in the zone
by coyotl
Summary: After the incident in the CNPP Strelok decides to stay in the rookie camp, where he has been living in peace helping Wolf with certain tasks until one day a group of recruits it's assigned to him.


"It has been 1 year since that day, the monolith and military shooting at each other, and I was in the middle of it, is it over? No of course it isn't over, but… at least now, things should be calm, well, at least as calm as it can be here in the zone…"

"Hey Strelok!" a familiar voice interrupted Strelok's line of though.

"Hey Wolf what is it that you need? Are Bandits being a problem or is it that the militaries are trying to get to close to the camp again?" Strelok said with a small smile as he loaded his Black Kite.

"Easy there killer, listen, I want to ask you for something… different, you see those rookies in the bonfire talking with my brother?" Wolf said as he turned his view towards them with a big smile.

"Yeah? What about them?" Strelok said with a confused tone on his voice.

"I want you to train them into the art of being a S.T.A.L.K.E.R"

"Listen Wolf, I'm willing to go to a bloodsuckers lair and kill them all by myself or wipe out a bandit camp and even fight the monolith again, but I'm not doing that, I'm not… good, when I have people with me you know? So I guess you'll have to do that yourself" He said with a sad tone as he turned his head down.

"Strelok, I would do it by myself if I could, but I need to go to the military warehouses, it's something personal, don't ask, and if you don't train them, well they are not going to survive in the zone, I know it's not your responsibility, but I don't like it when unexperienced ones die because they weren't trained" he said as he placed his hand on Strelok's shoulder.

"That's exactly why I wanted to destroy the zone, so people wouldn't die in it" Strelok said with a serious voice.

"Strelok, the zone it's going to stay we like it or not, and learn to deal with it, the zone itself it's not bad it's…"

"It's not that bad!? Do you even know how many people has died here just for some shitty artifact that it's not even worth the amount of money you fucking spent on bullets and gear?" Strelok shouted at him as he turned his eyes towards him with a furious look on his face.

"Listen, I know how bad things can be here, I'm sorry that I asked you for this, I guess, I'll find someone else to teach those kids how to deal with the zone"

Wolf started to walk away, Strelok stared at the people near the bonfire, Wolf started to talk with them, he couldn't hear what was he saying, he looked at the five rookies, they didn't even had gas masks or an artifact detector, they were just kids trying to make an easy living, they couldn't be pass 25 or 28 years old, he looked at them, with fear, but not scared of them, no… he was scared for what could happen to them, then by surprise one of those rookies decides to stand up and walks towards him with a bottle of vodka in his hand, once near he handled him the bottle of vodka.

"What the fuck is this? Some kind of bribe Wolf thought of?" Strelok said grabbing the bottle.

"Sir, I'm sorry If I'm being rude it's just that, well I kind of admire you, you are the legend of the zone! The one who took off the brain scorcher! The S.T.A.L.K.E.R Strelok! Right?" the rookie said with a look on his face that only a kid has when they meet their favorite wrestler or comic hero.

"Sounds pretty epic when said like that kid, truth is there was nothing glorious about all the shit that happened those times" he said with a serious face as he took a sip from the bottle.

"Well whatever it could have been, I'm glad I get to meet you sir, and I hope to see soon and well, I mean we are going to see each other tomorrow and, I… well…" he said nervous trying to find the words to keep the conversation.

"Tell me kid…"

"I'm Vlad by the way please forgive me for interrupting Mr. Strelok" he said with a nervous voice trying to avoid eye contact.

"Please don't call me Mr. It's the zone not a college, now listen Vlad, first of all, how old are you?" he asked as he took another sip from the bottle of vodka.

"I'm 19 years old sir… I mean Strelok" he said with enthusiasm until he saw Strelok spit the vodka all over.

"19 years old? What the fuck? You are a just a kid! What could motivate someone that young to look for his certain death in a place like this? Damn it who would be looking for his death at that age?" Strelok said with an almost furious voice.

"Well I… it's a long story sir" he said while looking down trying to avoid Strelok's eyes.

He then stood still, watching this kid from head to toe, and then turned his view to the other 4 rookies, he could see the terror in their eyes but he could also feel the enthusiasm only those who seek adventure in the zone have.

"Hey keep that look straight, very rarely you will be attacked from below kid, come on let's go check your other friends" he said patting the rookie's back.

The rookie then looked him at the eyes with a smile and started to walk towards the rookies near the bonfire.

"So after trying to find someone to train you guys I think that I will have to"

"Relay on me to do your job as always Wolf"

Wolf turned around and saw Strelok accompanied with Vlad.

"You fucking persuasive bastard I can't believe you convinced him to actually train you" Wolf said as he crossed his arms with a huge smile on his face as he stared at Vlad.

"Woah! Wait what? Mr. Strelok I didn't knew anything about it" the rookie started to panic as he took some distance from Strelok.

"Hahahaha, damn this kids really need me, don't worry Vlad, it's a decision I took, and please we already talked about calling me Mr." he said as he took sit with the rookies around the bonfire.

"Sir… I mean Strelok, it's true that you went into the center of the zone twice?" one of the rookies asked.

"Yes, indeed it's true" he nodded as he confirmed the statement.

"Oh my God! I can't believe it this is… some next level shit" the rookie said with excitement.

"Listen all of you, Wolf asked me to train you how to be a S.T.A.L.K.E.R, so you can stand a chance in the zone, right now I want you to go to sleep, tomorrow we will start your training, understood?" he said as he crossed his arms behind his back as he looked at them.

"Yes sir!" they said.

"This is not the military don't call me sir, call me Strelok that's my name, do you know each other?" he asked looking at them.

"Ehrm… no Strelok we just got assembled by Wolf" Vlad said as he raised his hand.

"Put your hand down Vlad this is not a school and well then before you go to bed talk among you, it will be the best if you get to know each other before I get to know all of you individually" he said as he turned around and started walking away.

"Good night, don't let the Rodents bite you"

"Well this is not a military facility guys, but I suggest you to follow all of Strelok's orders, I need to go somewhere, it might take me around one or two weeks, or maybe I'll die in the middle of my travel who knows? Anyways good bye rookies I hope that if I see you again it's not in a death car" Wolf said as he took a backpack and his viper-5.

"Well maybe we should then head to go to sleep guys you heard Strelok" Vlad said as he was cleaning the surrounding area of the bonfire.

"Come on man, you heard Strelok this is not a military base or an institution, let's stay here for a while, also he said we should get to know each other so let me start ok?" one of the rookies said as he grabbed some vodka and started serving a cup of it for Vlad.

"Here have this" he said handling the cup of vodka to Vlad

"My name is Ursus, I used to live nearby the zone on the military camp, you know that one were civilians were moved to when the disaster happened and I'm 22 years old" he said with a smile on his face as he started drinking from the bottle of vodka.

He was a white man, with brown hair and brown eyes, small mouth and quite a big pointy nose who was 1.79 cm tall with a robust body.

"Hey thank you for the cup of Vodka Ursus and nice to meet you" Vlad said as he took sit near him.

"Are you always this much of a boot licker dude?" one of the rookies said to Vlad with a cocky smile on his face.

"Hey it's not his fault that he had parents who taught him to be polite you know?" Ursus said with a serious face.

"Psst whatever, It was just a joke no need to get jumpy about it" the rookie said.

"What's your name anyway" Ursus asked him with a more relaxed tone in his voice.

"My name doesn't matter just call me Wound" he said as he stared at the bonfire.

Wound was also a white man who had green eyes and hair as dark as the night with a pretty fine nose and a medium size mouth who was 1.68 cm tall, he was skinny but with an athletic look.

"Wound? You know it fits you, you know that right?" Ursus said with a serious face.

"Oh really? And why is that?" Wound asked.

"Because it seems to be a pain in the ass to work with you" he said as the rest of the rookies laughed.

"Pretty fucking funny you prick" he said with a serious face as he stared at the bonfire.

"Come on Ursus don't be like that, hey Wound, and why are you called Wound anyways?" Vlad said with an innocent voice as he looked at him.

"It's a short and not really relevant story so forget about it ok?" he said as he looked to the opposite side from where Vlad was.

"Oh! Ok I'm sorry for asking comrade" Vlad said staring at the empty cup he was holding.

"Want some more Vlad?" Ursus asked.

"Nah I'm fine, thanks anyways, hey since plenty stalkers use nicknames, should we use codenames or some shit like that guys?" Vlad asked with excitement.

"I mean if you want to yeah of course you should change your name or something like that but a nickname doesn't make any better or more cool, no offense Wound, I mean just look at Strelok, the greatest S.T.A.L.K.E.R in the zone, he doesn't used a nickname" one of the rookies said.

"And you are?" Wound asked raising his eyebrow.

"Oh I'm sorry my name is Ivan, I used to study medicine back in my hometown but to be honest I never learned anything so don't expect me to save you from a wound no pun intended, and well I'm 25 years old, damn this almost feel like those first days when you are in school"

Ivan was a light skinned man with a muscular body, he had blue eyes and his head was shaved. But judging by his eyebrows he could be blonde, he had a fine mouth a small nose and was 1.75 cm tall.

"So pretty much you are useless as a medic?" Wound said.

"I mean I know the basics, I might even be able to save you from a bullet wound, but don't expect me to be able to save your ass if you run into a chemical hazards" he said with a little laugh.

"Well it's something I guess, but what could bring you here to the zone?" Ursus asked with an intrigued voice.

"Well one time at the school they brought an artifact, you know one of those that heal your wounds, and it was incredible, we cut a part of a chicken leg and it healed almost instantly, of course the radiation was a problem but I heard that the medicine for radiation here it's quite advanced, so when I saw that I started asking stuff, like if there was any kind of artifact that cured radiation poisoning and they said yeah there are quite a good number of artifacts that do that, and well my sister back home it's suffering from a disease and well I came here to the zone looking for artifacts that can help me cure her" he said with a sad voice yet with a convinced look on his face.

"I see, that's a noble cause, I hope you are lucky and find what you are looking for quickly, but, I still wonder, why didn't you just buy an artifact out there?" Ursus asked with a confused look on his face.

"Because artifact are expensive as fuck once they are out of the zone, like a simple artifact one of those common ones are worth 4000 RU here, meanwhile in the outside the can cost 100,000 RU, it's just insane how much can they cost" the last unidentified rookie said.

"And how do you know that?" Wound asked with a sassy voice.

"Because I just to be a military, never worked here in the zone, but was part of an operation once, we had to escort this package, turned out it was an artifact, jellyfish I think it was called, I overheard the buyer, some kind of scientist that worked for the government, seemed like an actual good fella, still those who were with him, two guys escorting him, those guys were shady as fuck, anyways doesn't matter, I'm just telling you what I saw, by the way I'm Poteryal and I'm 28 years old that's all you need to know"

Poteryal was an athletic looking white man; he had brown hair and honey color eyes and had small lips with a scar in the upper lip, his nose was flat and was 1.80 cm tall.

"So Poteryal, I know you said everything we should know about you… according to you but, why a military would be a S.T.A.L.K.E.R I mean they are like sworn enemies or some shit like that, so what are you doing here?" Ivan asked him as he handled him a cup of vodka but he refused to take it.

"I said that's all you need to know, I have my personal reasons to do what I'm doing" he said as he grabbed his chest as if he was holding something.

"Well I see, I think it's time to go to sleep" Ursus said as he started to stand up.

"Wait a second, hey you, Vlad, you haven't told us anything yet, don't think that I care too much but everyone has shared their part so you should do it too.

"Oh well, I'm not really that interesting, I'm just a 19 years old guy looking for adventure you know" Vlad said as he started to clean the bonfire.

Vlad was had a regular body, he wasn't muscular but neither he was fat, he was light skinned with small black eyes, black hair, medium sized lips and nose a little bit big, he was 1.71 cm tall.

"Come on man, there must be something else, something that inspired you or made you come here into the zone, tell us something you like or something" Ursus said with a smile on his face.

"Well I… I just don't feel like talking about it I'm sorry, I like music I don't know if that helps" he said with a nervous smile.

"Well that's as helpful as a knife during a gunfight" Wound said as he mocked about it.

"Well if you keep underestimating a knife in a gunfight that just shows how ignorant you are when it comes to a combat situation" Poteryal said as he started to burn more wood.

"Yeah sure, we'll see about that" Wound said as he stared at him.

"Don't worry kid, I hope you know how to play the guitar though, it would be great to have someone that plays it in the bonfire just as many people do here" Ivan said as he placed his arm around Vlad's neck.

"Hehehe, thanks, hey guys I just realized, where the fuck are we going to sleep if there are no beds here?" Wound said as he started looking around.

"In case you didn't notice, this is not exactly a five stars hotel, I suggest going to one of those destroyed house and getting some sleep there until we can make a decent tent" Poteryal said as he started to climb on top of the destroyed house.

"I'll make the first guard" he said as he looked around.

"Fuck that I'm not sleeping there" Ivan said as he kicked the vodka bottle on the ground.

Everything went silent for a minute until they heard howling far away.

"Actually I think that house it's quite… charming you know guys?" Ivan said as he ran into the house.

"Hey rookie get some sleep we'll make guard for tonight, no offense but you'll be wasting energy if you don't have a gun while guarding" some random S.T.A.L.K.E.R said as they started to load their guns.

"Well, it looks like I'm actually getting some sleep; maybe I'll like it here" Poteryal said under his breath.

"Good night everyone" Vlad said.

"Good night comrades" Ursus replied.

"Good night fellas, hope you don't get bite by a rodent" Ivan said.

"Aren't you going to say good night punk?" Poteryal said with a disgusted tone in his voice to Wound.

"Whatever dude just let me sleep" Wound replied.

Then Poteryal grabbed his arm with a strong grip and stared at him.

"Agh! What the fuck dude?" Wound replied.

"Manners won't make you less cool" Poteryal said with a death serious tone.

"Ok, ok, good night… fucking hell stop already!" he said as he stared at the ex-militar hand holding his arm.

"See? It wasn't that hard, good night everyone" Poteryal said as he let go Wound's arm.

In the dark, a figure was standing looking at the rookies sleep, observing them as he whispered.

"I hope I don't fail all of you like I failed all the people that relied on me before…"


End file.
